If this week’s weather hasn’t got you all hot ‘n’ bothered, then what better way of remedying that than by watching tonight’s Question Time (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm)?
David Laws, the Lib Dems’ children, schools and families, will be the party’s representative. The QT website gives his impressive pre-Commons bio: “Before his election to Parliament in 1997, he had a career in economics and business, during which he was vice president of JP Morgan, and head of US Dollar and Sterling Treasuries at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He left in 1994 to take up the role of economic adviser to the Liberal Democrats, and from 1997 to 1999 was the party’s director of policy and research.”
Joining David on the panel will be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the House of Commons Harriet Harman MP, the former leader of the Tory party Iain Duncan Smith MP, the musician and songwriter Jarvis Cocker, and the journalist and columnist Peter Hitchens.
As per last week, we’re continuing to trial a new way of contributing to the open thread, via Facebook’s Live Stream Box, below:
If you’re tuning in, you can join the simultanous online Twitter debate here at #bbcqt, or the LDV debate in the thread below. Meanwhile Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson will be liveblogging events via CoverItLive at his own blog.
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3 Comments
Well the QT website is wrong then. David Laws was first elected as MP for Yeovil in 2001, not 1997, succeeeding Jeremy John Durham Ashdown.
Go I hate Peter Hitchen
He says the Tories and Labour are tweedle dee and tweedle dumber (which I totally agree with) but then, with a sneer, dismisses the only possible viable alternative – The Lib Dems 🙁
What does he suggest then? We all sit at home complaining that we have crap government forever more?
I thought David Laws was unclear about the railways. He repeated Vince Cable’s effective line about privatising profit and nationalising debt, without a coherent vision of rail transport.
His rejection of nationalisation left the impression that he is a fundamental free marketeer who would see a public service go bankrupt and collapse. It was let to Hitchins of all people to defend the old BR. Everyone knows that there are many aspects of rail transport that are much worse than before, largely the result of a disintegrated system.